I was not expecting to see the word “Emet” (“truth” in Hebrew) on the front of a giant game box. I did not expect to see little Star of David and menorah tokens displayed on the back. And I didn’t expect the game’s theme to start describing a Jewish fairy tale I remember reading as a kid.
Golem is a heavy Euro game that originally came out in 2021, but had a limited print run at the time. With its second printing, a lot more people, including myself, are getting their hands on the game.
For the unfamiliar, the Golem of Prague is an Jewish-Czech folktale that sees a Rabbi creating an automoton out of clay to protect the village. The game Golem takes this idea one step further and envisions a Prague where the creation of golems is commonplace, and many rabbinical students are using them to perform various tasks.
That means the keywords in this game are fairly unique in the world of tabletops. Players control their Rabbi and students and use the common synagogue to build, control and destroy golems.
Maybe it sounds shallow, but this strikes me as fairly significant in a genre that has been thoroughly saturated with priests, cathedrals, monks and bishops. Viscounts of the West Kingdom straight up uses decorated crosses in its symbology and it’s probably not alone.
And this is all fine. Sagrada and Architects of the West Kingdom are two of my favorite games. It would be silly and ahistorical not to use Christian terminology in those games’ settings.
But in other themes, the terms are so commonly used that they begin to lose their religious association. “Priest” becomes synonymous with “unit that can do special things”. “Cathedral” becomes synonymous with “valuable building”.
So hearing “Rabbi” and “Synagogue” used as keywords sort of readjusts my brain to recognizing those things for what they actually are in reality. Not only does that give me a little thrill—hearing terms that actually have significance to me used frequently in my favorite hobby—but it has also made me think more about the role of religion in other games.
The game itself is a beast to learn and actually a little out of my comfort zone. But it kind of doesn’t matter. Its presence in the hobby is enough.
Shabbat Shalom!
